succession, to different claimants in one week. Late applicants might obtain a preference for appointments on making a cash payment of twenty-five florins; an increased preference might be had for fifty. It became, at last, no unusual thing to write to kings and prelates for subsidies--a proof how greatly the papacy had been weakened by the events of the times. [Sidenote: Indignation of religious Europe.] But religious Europe could not bear with such increasing scandals. The rival popes were incessantly accusing each other of falsehood and all manner of wickedness. At length the public sentiment found its expression in the Council of Pisa, called by the cardinals on their own responsibility. This council summoned the two popes--Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII.--before it; declared the crimes and excesses imputed to them to be true, and deposed them both, appointing in their stead Alexander V. [Sidenote: Three popes.] There were now, therefore, three popes. But, besides thus rendering the position of things worse than it was before in this respect, the council had taken the still more extraordinary step of overthrowing the autocracy of the pope. It had been compelled by the force of circumstances to destroy the very foundation of Latin Christianity by assuming the position of superiority over the vicar of Christ. Now might be discerned by men of reflexion the purely human nature of the papacy. It had broken down. Out of the theological disputes of preceding years a political principle was obviously emerging; the democratic spirit was developing itself, and the hierarchy was in rebellion against its sovereign.